A sweeping collection of the revered New Yorker cartoonist's best, wackiest, and most charming works depicting everyday life in mid-century America.

The torments of a crowded elevator, the agitations of the long commute, the myriad embarrassments of cocktail hour, the endless war between children and bedtimes: this is the world of Gluyas Williams. In over seventy newspapers and magazines such as Life, Collier's, and The New Yorker in the 1930s and 40s, Williams proved himself to be American cartooning's master of quotidian comedy -- effortlessly funny, gracefully absurd. This brand-new selection, edited by the comics scholar Jonathan Barli, brings together highlights of the full sweep of his work, much of it long out of print or never collected. From the elegantly ridiculous single-panel tableaux to the precisely hilarious short stories to the continuing adventures of Fred Perley, man of the suburbs, it offers a timeless survey of the joys and indignities of being human, and a perfect introduction to one of the giants of American humor.